


Feel No Rain

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, Post-Series, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-08
Updated: 2011-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-24 10:11:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Arlington townhouse that had once been merely somewhere to sleep was now a home. It was filled with Daniel’s stuff.  His books overflowed their allotted shelf space and made Jenga-like towers in every room. His music filled the air, his laughter filled his heart, and Jack loved it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feel No Rain

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a traditional Apache verse used in wedding ceremonies, which begins: "Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter to the other."
> 
> Written to the prompt: Jack and Daniel, comfortable in DC and looking back.

Jack took off his reading glasses and rubbed his fingers over aching eyes. He stifled a yawn and checked the clock over the mantel.  11.30 p.m.  God. When did he start wanting to go to bed before the witching hour? When he started to relax. When his life wound down from the constantly stressful hours behind a Pentagon desk. When the man whose feet were in his lap, toes curling and uncurling to their own happy rhythm, moved into his heart and then his home.

Jack marveled at the changes Daniel had wrought since shipping his life lock, stock and barrel out East. He’d made him think about retirement, although Daniel hadn’t been the one to suggest it. He’d made him start exercising again, although Jack had been the one to sign them both up for gym membership.

He’d made Jack feel alive again, when, little by little, the walls of the Pentagon had been closing in on him.

The Arlington townhouse that had once been merely somewhere to sleep was now a home. It was filled with Daniel’s stuff.  His books overflowed their allotted shelf space and made Jenga-like towers in every room. His music filled the air, his laughter filled his heart, and Jack loved it all.

They had a five-year plan, at the end of which they’d swap Virginia for northern Minnesota. It was an achievable goal for both of them.

Jack leaned forward and placed his book and glasses on the coffee table. Daniel shot him an aggrieved look as the move shifted his feet from their comfortable Jack nest.

“Ready for bed?” Jack asked, settling back and giving Daniel’s toes a squeeze by way of apology.

Daniel lowered his book. “Not really tired,” he said, glancing at the clock.

“Not what I asked,” Jack said, smiling.

Daniel shook his head. “Jesus. The undemanding demands of part-time consultancy work have turned you into an unstoppable sex machine.”

“Gotta put that extra time to good use, Daniel.”

“Fair point,” Daniel conceded, his voice getting higher and growing tight as he stretched like a cat in the sun. His shirt rode up, revealing a couple of inches of delicious skin. Jack’s mouth went dry. God, that they _had_ this now. That the simple act of sitting on the couch in their home was theirs for the taking. That they could go to bed in their bed, wake up on their clock ... it was the little things that were a big deal in the life they were making together.

Daniel seemed content to be here. He was consulting, too, providing his unique perspective and expertise when his former colleagues at the SGC needed it. He’d staffed his department with the brightest and best, though, and set up protocols and a reference database that meant they could usually find the answers without him. He was also working on collating an over-arching report on taking the program public and recruiting skilled linguists for the delicate PR campaign that would swing into action when the news broke.

But he wasn’t “out there.” He wasn’t meeting and greeting and discovering, and Jack wondered, sometimes, if this was enough. He chose to push to the back of his mind the accompanying question: was _Jack_ enough.

“You okay about this?” Jack asked, before he had the chance to self-censor.

“Going to bed so early? Only if you’ll top.”

Jack threw his head back against the sofa cushions and laughed out loud. That they had this ...

“This, Daniel.” Jack waved his hands at the room in general. “You’ve given up a lot. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

Daniel closed his book and hugged it to him. “It was time to give up a lot of what I left behind, Jack.  The long hours, the frustration of answering to people who weren’t you. The not being with you.”

Jack frowned. He knew some this. “Was it really that bad?”

Daniel smiled that seductive half-smile. “The not being with you part was. It overrode everything else at the end. It made me realize how much I relied on Us to get through the day-to-day. Even when we weren’t an Us.”

“Backatcha,” Jack said, remembering all to well how it felt to function without the better part of him. “There were good times, though?” Jack asked, not wanting to think too deeply about a lonely, unhappy Daniel half a continent away, even though that time was past.

“Some. After you left, I grew closer to Sam and Teal’c, like we were huddling together for warmth in the cold left by your absence. Mitchell tried hard to be a friend. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t you. And Vala kept it ... real.” Daniel winced.

Jack found himself constantly amused at Daniel’s discomfiture whenever the subject of Ms Mal Doran came up. She was “out there” again, still in contact but living her life her way.

“Team is team,” Jack said, running his hand up under the soft denim of Daniel’s old jeans and stroking his shin.

“No. It’s not,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “My definition of team changed markedly when you weren’t a part of it anymore.” He went quiet for a moment, then his face went achingly soft, the subtle, low lighting of the living room lamps playing off the planes and angles. He was still, in Jack’s eyes, the most beautiful man in this or any other galaxy. “My God, Jack,” Daniel smiled, “those early days ...”

Jack continued stroking. “Another life.”

“I was so fucking arrogant. I thought I could do anything ... _we_ could do anything.”

“You were a snippy little bastard sometimes.”

Daniel frowned. “Too much?”

“Not for me, but then I never did buy into the sweet little Daniel thing.”

Daniel’s frown deepened. “I never pretended to be sweet.”

“No, you didn’t. But you did pout, lick your lips and bat your eyelashes a lot.”

“I did not.”

“Did too.”

Daniel hugged his book closer. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Reached epic proportions with Aris Boch. You never quite achieved that level again.”

Daniel looked thoughtful again. Reliving. Re-assessing.  “I think I fell in love with you from day one.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

There was that half-smile again. “You were cold and nothing but military but I could sense a kind of grudging admiration. That was the nicest anyone had been to me in ... forever.”

Jack nodded, thinking back to the man he’d been then; lonely, desperately unhappy, filled with guilt and rage. Suicidal. Daniel changed all that.

“You were amazing,” Jack said, quietly.  He raised his eyes and met Daniel’s gentle gaze. “Still are.”

“Does comfortable domesticity automatically have to equal sappiness?” Daniel asked.

“That would seem to be the case.”

“I should probably find that more unsettling than I do.”

“Probably.”

Jack closed his eyes and let the background music wash over him. Some ambient jazz stuff he didn’t recognize but was growing on him, just as Daniel said it would.

“I don’t know exactly when I fell for you,” Jack said after a while and after Daniel had re-opened his book.

“Well, it’s enough that you did,” Daniel said. “You did, right?” he added, flashing Jack a faux needy look.

“Oh yeah. Big time. All in. Right down to your adorable toes.” He tweaked a couple, just to emphasize the point. Daniel, ever ticklish, pulled his feet away and threw Jack the blue glare of death. He pulled his legs up and rested the book on his knees.

“Truth is,” Jack added, “I don’t want to pinpoint when I fell in love with you. That way, I can say I’ve always loved you.”

“You are such a sap. No one would ever believe me if I told them the things you say.” Daniel shook his head, not bothering to hide his delight at all.

“You say them too.”

“Only when I’m coming.”

“Not true! You call me baby when you kiss me goodbye in the mornings.”

Daniel laughed. “Baby ... that’s the best you’ve got outside of the sack?”

Jack sniffed. “They’d never believe me either.  You’re more buttoned up emotionally than Teal’c ever knew how to be.”

“What?” Daniel said on a disbelieving gasp. “Please. I cried on missions more times than I care to remember. And I talked to you about ... stuff.”

“Me,” Jack said, holding up his finger. “You talked to _me._ As far as anyone else was concerned, you were Mr. Unreachable, despite your reputation as the ultimate communicator. Hence, they’d never believe me.” He finished with a smug smile.

Daniel sighed. “Then I guess we’d better just keep our rampant sappiness to ourselves, then.”

“I guess so. I’m hoping the aforementioned loved-up-iness  is not a deal breaker for you.”

Daniel swung round to put his feet on the floor and his book on the table.

“I’m glad we’re here and that we have,” Daniel waved his hands at the room, as Jack had earlier, “this. I think we’ve earned it.”

“Yeah,” Jack smiled. “I think we have.”

“Still wanna go to bed?” Daniel asked, leaning in for a quick, encouraging kiss. Jack kissed him back, turning it into something deeper, sexier and full of dark promise.

“Only if you’ll top,” Jack said.

Daniel grinned, eyes alight with mischief. “Oh, this is gonna be good,” he said, standing and holding out his hand.

Jack let Daniel haul him to his feet and pulled him close for another lingering kiss, telling him he loved him with warm lips and adoring tongue.

In a while, he’d tell him with everything else he had.

 

ends


End file.
